The female porcupine, born in 1993 and received by the Phoenix Zoo in 1998, had a pretty easy life. All she had to do was perform for people as part of a zoo educational program.
But when her weight became an issue, and her willingness to act accordingly for crowds diminished, the porcupine's handlers systematically reduced her diet to the point that the creature wasted away, according to internal zoo records obtained by New Times.
By early January, when Tinkerbell finally received medical attention for lethargy and weakness, it was too late. Her tiny body, frail beyond belief, was emaciated to the point that the formerly healthy porcupine, which should have weighed 12 pounds, had been starved down to 8 pounds.
She died two days later, on January 11.
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Publishers Notes: This is exactly why I started Salisbury News almost 9 years ago. The Salisbury Zoo had thousands of animals that had died under very questionable conditions for many years. Because of protocol, an employee could only go to their supervisor with a complaint. If the supervisor brought that complaint to the Director of the Zoo, that's where it ended. Now, that employee could file a formal complaint and it would then be brought to the Public Works Director and it would simply die there. The Mayor was completely protected, never knowing what was going wrong in that Department/Zoo.
I took it upon myself to make an appointment with the Mayor and John pick and brought in literally hundreds of pages of necropsy reports of animals that had died due to what they call poor husbandry care. In other words, Zookeepers who in many cases were ABUSING the animals.
The Mayor, (Barrie Tilghman) assured me during that meeting that this would be rectified immediately. Months went by where she refused to return my calls and it was swept under the rug. The Daily Times ran a very factual article on a Sunday, part one of a four part series, so they stated. On Monday the Mayor and majority of Council went into the Daily Times screaming and yelling, (literally) and the DT's chose NOT to run the balance of information against the Zoo. THAT is when Salisbury News was created.
The Director of the Zoo was hiring old friends to care for animals at the Zoo, none of them were qualified. In fact, there are thousands of young people who actually go to college for animal husbandry to become Zookeepers. It is well known across the country that these jobs are not necessarily high paying jobs but MOST feel a calling to work closely with animals and in most cases their families help subsidize the balance of their cost of living.
That being said, the Director of the Zoo had always had the opportunity to hire very qualified staff and instead hired local friends who had no professional background. Hence multiple and unnecessary deaths of animals. I spent years taking pictures of dead animals at the Zoo on a daily basis as well a running inventory of animals each day. Once I started Salisbury News and published the photos of dead animals and the dwindling inventory, that is when the Zoo started doing everything to have me arrested and removed from the Zoo.
Again, if you simply use the "search bar" in the top left hand side of Salisbury News and type in "Salisbury Zoo" just keep clicking on older posts and it will bring you back to all the old articles I wrote years ago. These are articles MOST of you have never seen.
So what's so different about the Salisbury Zoo today, not much at all. They continue to fly under the radar. Believe me, read those old articles and you'll see for yourself. Look at the pictures and compare the Zoo today vs 9 years ago and you'll see, nothing has really changed.
I want to say this though. There are MANY wonderful people who work at the Salisbury Zoo. Many of the horrible Zookeepers are no longer employed there, including the old Director. Today, the only difference is that they feel by dumping MILLIONS of dollars into a FREE Zoo will fix things. Sounds a LOT like Obama's bailouts or policies, eh? The entire concept of the Salisbury Zoo needs to be changed. I encourage you to READ those old articles as MOST of you hadn't followed us back in those days. I can assure you, you'll be absolutely blown away and even FURIOUS at what was going on with the animals and the money they are dumping into this place with NO accountability whatsoever.
In fact, here's a link to get you started. GO HERE.
